[red]I am pretty new to the hobby, and I have an Athearn SD40-2 that is three or four years old. (also an Atlas Master Dash 8, an Atlas Master Gold SD-26, and a BLI Hudson 4-6-4 that are great) Anyway the SD just seams low quality, but I like the body style. Is there anyway I can make it run quiet and smoothe like my Atlas, or is it chronically ill?
When you say it is 4 or 5 years old is this running years or boxed years? If its boxed years then running will help. there is a thread on here I cant remember where but it deals with this problem on some of the older athearn engines. I have a SD40-2 that is a couple of years old and it is not noisy at all. My older SD9 is like a singer sewing machine running around in circles.
It was run about an hour after it was purchased and has been boxed since
If this is a so-called “blue box” Athearn locomotive, it’s natural for them to make a lot of noise.
Run time and lubrication should help. However, you might want to consider remotoring it with a repower kit from Alliance Locomotive Products (think Helix Humper). They make two repower kits that will fit the SD40-2, one that reuses the Athearn flywheels and one that supplies new flywheels.
Here’s a link to the page illustrating what Alliance sells. The Athearn kits are about 1/3 of the way down the page. http://www.alliancelink.com/alp/photos.htm
Hope this helps.
Incidentally, if you’ve got the bucks, BLI is coming out with a sound and DCC equipped SD40-2.
Andre